


I Think I've Got Fireflies Where My Caution Should Be

by altschmerzes



Series: Cairo Week 2020 (The Crossover Special) [2]
Category: Flashpoint (TV), MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Bombs, Gen, Hurt Mac, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Protectiveness, Team as Family, Trapped, Worry, jack is a scared dad and greg is a more subtle but still scared dad, pictured: top 10 worst circumstances under which to defuse a bomb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23679136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/pseuds/altschmerzes
Summary: A mission in Toronto wraps up far ahead of schedule, giving Mac, Jack, and Riley plenty of time to accidentally stumble across a Canadian Strategic Response Unit team on a bomb call. It quickly proves to be a little more than a regular bomb call, and when Mac - one of the few people to ever survive more than one encounter with the Ghost - ends up trapped by one of the devices going off, he needs to figure out a way to work with SRU bomb tech Spike to disarm the second one together, before Mac's injuries overwhelm him.It's not going to be easy. Not for Mac and Spike, and not for Jack, Riley, and Spike's team, forced to watch from beyond the perimeter.(for an again belated cairo week day 2, "improvise day")
Series: Cairo Week 2020 (The Crossover Special) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703446
Comments: 40
Kudos: 111





	I Think I've Got Fireflies Where My Caution Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to issue an apology to anybody who knows anything about 1. toronto architecture, 2. bombs, and 3. like.... procedural details as a whole. that being said, i'm here for a good time not a well fact-checked time. 
> 
> second of my seven crossover oneshots for the cairo week writing fest on tumblr, and also the second that is both late and way longer than i banked on it being. 
> 
> this one specifically would not exist without two wonderful people - OrionLady here on ao3, my dear friend who reminded me what i loved about flashpoint to begin with, and anguishmacgyver over on tumblr, another good buddy whose prompt post inspired this whole mess.

> _ I think I've got fireflies where my caution should be. (Instead of slowing down, I just shine brighter.) _
> 
> _ \- A Softer World, Emily Horne & James Comeau _

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Of course, it never is. If it happens the way it was supposed to, Jack figures, it’s probably happening to someone else. That’s just how their luck has shaken out, right from day one. He’s given up on ever expecting missions to be quick and easy, no matter how they look on paper at the start, for precisely this reason. Which honestly makes it a little ironic that this day had started out with one that went exactly like that.

Toronto, Ontario is a city Jack had never been to before this morning. By the time their mission was finished, wrapped up in a nice bow, it was barely pushing noon, and the flight Matty arranged for them home wasn’t until after eight that evening. Left with an unexpectedly free day in what looks to be a pretty neat place, their small team decided to bum around for a while, seeing what there is to see and just enjoying themselves like tourists for a chance. 

It’s good, Jack has to say, to see Mac and Riley like this. They’d spent a while down by Lake Ontario, meandering along the waterfront and watching the bright midday sun glint dazzlingly off the rippling dark blue surface of the smallest of the Great Lakes. Families passed by on either side, laughing or talking or quietly enjoying the sunlight and light breeze rustling through the grass. It was easy, if Jack closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Riley teasing Mac for something or other, the tinny echo of Bozer’s answering laughter sounding through the speakers where they’re video chatting with him to show him the lake, to imagine they’re just like the rest of them. Just a family, having a nice day by the water.

They’ve wandered into the city itself now, surrounded by buildings that reach up into the cloudless blue sky, pedestrians going about their business at a generally faster clip than the people by the lake had been. Riley, with some article on ‘Top 10 Places to Visit When You’re in Toronto’ pulled up on her phone, is playing tour guide, pointing out important landmarks when she sees them. The path they’re on now is going to take them to City Hall, which she says is supposed to be, quote, “Really neat.”

Really neat it may be, but they don’t make it that far. Their route, as it gets closer to Old City Hall, used now as a courthouse according to Riley’s dictation, takes the three of them into an ever-growing commotion that seems out of the ordinary. The sense of being just like regular tourists, appreciating the time together in a new and interesting place, evaporates as Jack begins to put the pieces together.

A decently large group of people, milling about for no clear reason and growing thicker as they get closer to Old City Hall. Looks ranging anywhere from frightened to excited being exchanged between person to person. Abnormally high count of uniformed police officers, moving among the crowd and speaking over radios and headsets. It’s not until Jack overhears one bystander, a man in a suit, say something to his companion, a woman in a pencil skirt with a briefcase, that he knows what’s going on. 

‘Bomb,’ he’d said. There’s a bomb. 

Jack could about cry. Of course the one time things go well, go completely to plan, no asterisks or footnotes attached, they walk directly into a bomb scene. The next time they finish early, there is going to be no sight seeing, Jack decides, shaking his head at the incredulity of it all. They will be going directly to the airport, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and then they will sit there until their scheduled departure time. Though, if they do that, somebody is probably gonna decide that’s the perfect time to hijack a plane -  _ knock on wood. _

By the looks on their faces, it’s clear Mac and Riley have also pieced together what’s going on. In a silent agreement formed through a series of glances, the three of them make their way through the fluctuating mass of people towards the epicenter of the drama, hoping to be able to get a better read on it there. 

Pinpointing who’s in charge of things isn’t difficult. There’s a distinct cluster of people next to a big black van that looks like the ones they often run missions out of, dressed differently than the other officers on the scene. One of them, a slight young man who stands at a bit of a distance from the rest of his team, is operating what looks to Jack like a big remote control, the kind you use to drive a battery powered toy car. 

Beyond where the last of the people stops short, across yards of empty concrete, is a robot the likes of which Jack has seen before, guided by Mac. It’s an EOD robot, trundling around where the device in question must be. Jack can’t make heads or tails of what it’s doing from this distance, but he supposes Mac probably has a better idea of what’s going on, from the way he’s squinting out at it, forehead wrinkled into a concentrating frown. 

At this distance, they’re just barely close enough to make out what’s being said, and it seems like run of the mill bomb threat sort of stuff. The scene is secured, the chatter between the team on-scene is serious but calm, and the man in charge of the EOD robot is relaying information every so often, seeming like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Jack is just about to turn to Mac and Riley, recommend that they leave these people to do their jobs and get back about their day somewhere far away from anything that might blow up, when EOD Robot Guy says it. 

“Pentaerythritol tetranitrate,” he says, the ease in his voice slipping somewhat. His eyes leave the screen of his gadget box and he looks over at his team. “Compound analysis reads pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Pure.”

“Spike, smaller words, fewer syllables,” one of them tells him, a tall bald man with a narrow face and an air of authority about him. The woman standing next to him shakes her head and her shoulders jerk in a slight laugh. Jack knows that feeling well and cracks a smile, nudging Mac with his elbow without looking to the side. Mac doesn’t respond to the nonverbal teasing, which should have been Jack’s first hint that things were about to go very wrong.

EOD Robot Guy - Spike, apparently, and were it not for Charlie Robinson Jack might start thinking all bomb nerds came with strange names - shakes his head, looking back at his screen. “PETN,” he amends, and Jack’s blood runs cold. The further tension in Spike’s voice doesn’t help. He knows what it means when disposal techs sound like that. “It’s PETN.”

Where bombs are concerned, Jack sits somewhere near what he’d imagine would be the middle of the pack, knowledge-wise. He knows more than your average person off the street would about explosives, thanks to his time overseas and working with Mac, but he’s nowhere near an expert. There’s no way though that, despite this, he will ever be able to escape an acute knowledge of exactly what that particular compound appearing in a bomb means. 

“What in the  _ hell,”  _ Riley says fiercely, voice pitched down and meant only for their now-huddled trio, “is the Ghost doing in freaking  _ Canada?” _

Mac doesn’t say anything at all. He’s not looking at them, focused downrange of the perimeter where the robot is still trundling around, running some test or other. Jack watches him carefully, sees the half-dozen things that flashes through Mac’s face before suddenly, he’s moving. Jogging to catch up, Riley a half-pace behind him, Jack follows closely behind him, worry mounting by the moment.

“What, exactly, are you planning on doing?” he asks.

Mac doesn’t turn around, still laser-focused on his goal. “I need to get in there.”

“Get in  _ where?” _

“Get in the perimeter,” Mac says in the exasperated tone of someone who thinks this should be obvious. And to be fair, it had been obvious. Jack had definitely known that would be the answer before he’d asked the question, he’d just also hoped he might be wrong.

“Okay, slow way the hell down here and think about this for a minute,” he says, reaching out and catching Mac by the arm, forcing him to stop. “Do you think those guys over there with the vests and the guns and everything are gonna appreciate some random dude strolling up and muscling in on their scene? We don’t carry identification, Mac, we can’t just flash a badge at them and ask pretty please can we help out.”

“I know.” Mac pulls his arm out of Jack’s grip and takes another step away, looking immediately back towards Old City Hall. “Which is exactly why we’re not going to ask.”

“I know I haven’t exactly been doing this for very long,” Riley puts in, sounding as dubious as Jack feels. “But that somehow doesn’t seem like a better idea.”

With a short, frustrated huff of breath, Mac stops on his own, finally looking at them. 

“Listen,” he says, speaking fast and low, “the odds are really good this is the Ghost, and if it is they have no idea what they’re walking into. They’re gonna send their tech down there to defuse that thing, and he’s not going to know what he’s looking at even if he thinks he does, because  _ nobody _ knows what they’re looking at with the Ghost until they’ve been around the block. I am one of an  _ extremely _ short list of people who’ve dealt with his work firsthand and lived to learn from my mistakes, and I’m not about to let someone who doesn’t know any better walk right into a death trap. Got it?”

There’s really no arguing with that, much though Jack might spend a moment wishing he could. So the plan becomes that Mac is going to find a way to sneak past the perimeter and scout around looking for the inevitable second device, and hopefully find a way to communicate with this team’s bomb tech before things got too far out of hand. 

“Us, what do you say, ‘giant nerds’ tend to listen to each other, y’know? I think I can get him to believe me, if I can get far enough to try.”

It’s not a good plan, but it’s the only plan they have. Jack can’t help the swell of massive unease he feels the instant Mac leaves his line of sight, disappearing around a corner behind a few trees. This is not remotely assisted by the fact that the last two times they tangled with the Ghost, he’d nearly been turned into pink mist in the back of a fake ambulance, then stood on top of a truck-load of explosives in Mac’s own house.

A glance next to him shows him that Riley looks just as concerned as he does, so Jack puts on a brave face and says, “Come on, let’s head back. He’s got his phone, he’ll keep us updated on what’s going on. Best we can do is keep an eye on things from here.”

It’s not long before Mac is figured out. One of the men, who Jack has gathered belongs to a SWAT kind of deal called a Strategic Response Unit, puts a hand up to his ear and then turns to his nearest teammate, asking, “Are you guys getting this?” before directing the question to whoever he’s speaking to, presumably their tech. “Yeah, sorry, Spike, can you repeat? A  _ civilian?  _ What do you mean, a civilian?”

Another man, the one Jack would assume is in charge given he immediately starts giving orders and everyone around him snaps to attention, claps his hands. “Alright, you heard him, Spike says we have a civilian downrange, won’t leave. Now-”

Jack misses what he says next when he turns and steps away, and takes a moment to snort to himself. Mac can have that effect on people. Riley affectionately rolls her eyes when he looks at her, and he shakes his head back. Though they’re both tense and worried like they always are when Mac does things like this, even more so thanks to the involvement of the damn Ghost of all people, at least things seem like for the moment they’re going okay.

With how suddenly distracted the team is by the news coming in through their earpieces from EOD Robot Guy Spike, they’re able to edge closer, hear more of what’s going on. The one who seems to be in charge is speaking faster now, relaying the information that the ‘civilian’, Mac, is ‘getting agitated.’ One of them says something about a second device, someone else scrambles for some piece of equipment that Jack doesn’t recognize, and anxiety tightens in the back of his throat.

Before much more can happen, an abrupt explosion rocks the ground. Riley’s voice rings in Jack’s ears, her involuntary shout of, “Oh my  _ god,” _ and then Jack is yelling too. He doesn’t get very far towards the settling cloud of dust and smoke before someone catches him and yanks him back, and then there’s a very worked up Canadian cop asking him a lot of really intense questions, none of which he processes. Jack is still pulling at the grip, yelling his partner’s name like he thinks Mac might be able to hear him, and then the man with Jack’s shirt in his fist looks sharply to the side. 

The second time, Jack hears it too. The team lead is calling over that they have Spike on comms, that he seems okay, and that the rogue civilian is alive too, “though probably not actually a civilian, standby for more on that.”

Suddenly lightheaded, Jack feels like he’s going to pass out. Someone shakes him by the shoulder, an unfamiliar voice demanding, “Hey, do you know the guy who’s down there? Is that who you were yelling for? Mac?”

“Yeah,” he says through numb lips, still unable to think very far past the feeling of the explosion vibrating through his shoes. 

The SRU officer, the name stitched onto the front of his uniform naming him  _ LANE _ calls over for the Sergeant, and then Jack and Riley are allowed past the perimeter line. They’re brought over towards the tactical van together, suddenly faced with half a team all expecting an explanation. Jack does his best with one, Riley cutting in where she can.

“Are…”  _ WORDSWORTH _ his name reads, and he’s shaking his head slowly back and forth, expression mystified. “Are you people absolutely nuts?”

Riley’s near-hysterical laugh is stifled by her hands and Jack says, “Probably. But it’s the truth. And I’m guessing it’s the reason why Mac and your fella down there, Spike I think, aren’t both dead right now.”

It’s not a minute later that Jack’s phone goes off. 

At first, it’s hard to remember what’s just happened. Mac’s ears are ringing and the world around him has gone mostly dark. His body hurts something fierce, though everything still feels hazy and distant with the muffled effect of an adrenaline shock, likely blocking the worst of the damage. Operating on instinct, Mac does a quick check just to be sure all of his limbs are where they’re supposed to be, which is not even remotely a joke, and that he hasn’t been stuck through by rebar or anything else that may have come at him during the explosion. 

Overall, it looks like he’s got a pretty significant gash on his side, but the other side seems to be where the damage is concentrated. In order to pat himself down, Mac had to lift a chunk of cement from the area, indicating it probably took a significant impact. 

When the ringing in his ears finally subsides enough that he can hear anything else, Mac makes out a voice, shouting through the gloom around him. He pinpoints the voice almost immediately as the bomb tech he’d been arguing with shortly before he realized the charge he’d located was about forty-five seconds from detonating.

Ultimately, it hadn’t taken him too long to make his way past the perimeter, and even less time to figure out the likely location of the second device. There seemed to be construction going on with part of Old City Hall. Temporary scaffolding and concrete platforms are built up outside as part of what Mac would guess, off the top of his head, was a long-term renovation project involving some of the detail work on the outside. It’s also a perfect place to hide a second bomb while emergency response was tied up with the first.

While he’s quietly poking around amidst the sheets of plastic and abandoned equipment he overhears the tech, Spike, talking to his team over his headset just out of sight. If either of them moves too far in the wrong direction, Mac’s going to be spotted.

“Looks like it’s supposed to be worked on by two people,” Spike is saying, his voice, quiet with a kind of scratchy quality, calm and focused. “Got rigging on both sides,” he explains, and a long pause follows. Mac squints up and around looking for the second device.

“No, Lou, stay where you are. You know the rule, one man downrange. I can handle it, it’s not too far to get my other hand to and push comes to shove. I'm as close to ambidextrous as you can get from training, so you all just cool your jets over there for a minute, and I’ll give you a shout if I need help, okay?”

Mac can’t help but smile a little, familiar with this end of that particular argument.

The next part all happened very quickly.

Somehow, between locating the second device and figuring out what to do about it, Mac had been spotted by Spike, and things devolved into a loud and impassioned argument on both sides - Spike’s trying to get him to leave and Mac’s trying to explain to him what’s going on and why he can’t. After the first few barked orders and relays into his unit about how a ‘civilian made it past the perimeter’ and ‘won’t leave,’ things shift. It’s obvious once Mac has spouted off enough highly field-specific babble that would’ve gone so far over most anyone else’s head it would’ve cleared buildings, that Spike is starting to believe him. 

Mac has a gun drawn on him for just long enough to bridge the gap between ‘knows enough to possibly be the bomber’ and ‘successfully manages to argue he isn’t the bomber,’ and then before they can talk further, a sound alerts Mac to another bad development. The bomb in the construction materials has armed. And there’s a countdown glaring at him in ominous, LED red. 

It’s one of the longest less-than-a-minutes of Mac’s life.

Now, Mac is in a pocket in a pile of rubble created by one of the concrete platforms falling at exactly the right angle to create a kind of tent of safety in it, listening to a man he’d met not ten minutes ago yelling at him to answer.

“I’m okay,” he calls back, once he coughs hard enough to clear his throat of dust.

“Oh thank god, I thought- hey, man, what’s your name? Can’t keep standing out here hollering hey crazy blond guy.”

“Mac. It's Mac.” He can’t help laughing a little after he says it, high pitched and strung out, though he can’t figure out what about any of this he’s finding funny.

“Good to meet you, Mac, though I gotta say the situation sucks. I’m Spike. And if what I saw there before you did your thing is right, you just saved my life, so thanks for that.”

“Yeah,” Mac says distractedly. “‘Course.” His forehead itches so he puts his hand up to scratch at it, only to touch something wet. He pulls it down and examines it in the light coming through some of the gaps in the debris. Red. his fingers came away red. His forehead is bleeding, which seems like pretty bad news. For some reason, this makes Mac laugh again, another thin, high giggle. 

It’s probably also bad news that Mac doesn’t know how long he spends trying to process this before Spike’s voice reappears

“Hey, Mac? Got a guy out here who seems like he might be about to start a fight with my boss if he doesn't hear from you in the next minute or so, do you have a way to call him? I gotta go… find the other bomb, I think the detonation knocked it out of place.” After saying this part, Spike’s voice moves farther away, though Mac can hear him muttering as he goes, “Last thing we need is bombers getting  _ creative, _ save that for the poets and whatever. I can appreciate the chutzpah but as like, a training exercise,  _ really, _ this is not how I needed my day to go.”

_ You and me both, _ Mac thinks.

Mac’s phone, for a given definition, survived the blast. The top third or so of the screen is shattered, cracks and leaking display crystals spidering down towards the rest of it, but he’s still able to make the call. Once he’s assured Jack and Riley that he did, in fact, survive the explosion, he gives them the quickest rundown of the situation he can. 

Essentially, the second device had been made with a set of bundled charges, all of them shaped and pointed out in different directions to maximize the damage. When it had been armed, Mac knew there was no time to actually defuse the thing as a whole, so he’d started detaching and disposing of individual charges as quickly as possible, until the only ones left were pointed out and away, then hit the deck between a support column and the building itself. 

He sees it as he’s talking to them and for a second, his heart drops through the ground, every one of his injuries suddenly shrieking at once as the sight sends a shockwave through his body. Not only had the first bomb been moved by the blast, it would seem Mac had been thrown some distance by it too, because there it is. Right in front of him, and pinned by a strut of rebar protruding from a cracked cement riser. 

“Guys, I have to call you back,” he says faintly.

“What?” Jack says at the same time Riley demands, “Why?”

“Because I think I just found the second bomb.” Mac hangs up before trying to explain further, no time to waste before evaluating just how screwed he is. “Spike,” he yells through the wall, not sure how far away the other man’s gone. “Spike, I’ve got it.”

Footsteps sound, and then a few distant thuds as chunks of scaffolding are moved away. A quiet curse follows, too faint for Mac to make out, and either he might actually be concussed, or that might have been in a different language.

“Yeah. How much can you see from your end?” Mac asks. He can’t see much on his, just enough to identify a bomb, which isn’t actually a lot. Not when you’ve seen as many as he has. 

“Most of it actually, I think, hang on.”

Together they’re able to clear most of the smaller pieces of debris, almost completely freeing the bomb to the air. As they go, Mac is feeling the aftershocks of how lucky they got roll over him like the tremors that follow an earthquake, except this time, the main event hadn’t happened at all. If this thing’s casing had been even a little less sturdy, if the mechanism had been jarred enough to trigger it… The fact that this device didn’t detonate when the other one did is kind of a miracle, but honestly Mac will take it. They need a miracle right now. 

“Well,” Spike says when they’re finally able to get a good look at what they’re working with. “That’s not good.”

“No,” Mac agrees. “It isn’t.”

True to what he’d heard Spike saying earlier to his team, the part it’s necessary to access in order to defuse the thing is split into two on either end of the bomb. Given the way it’s been pinned into place, unmovable without getting some serious equipment in here to lift the rebar keeping it still, even with the minor debris moved out of the way, Spike is still only going to be able to reach one half of what he needs to get at to fix it. Mac is the only one with access to the other half.

As Spike is updating his team on the developments in the situation, Mac starts studying what they’re working with. He’s able to focus for about fifteen or twenty seconds before his vision goes blurry and his chest gets suddenly much tighter. The pain that has been hovering on the edge of his awareness, kept down by adrenaline and shock, is beginning to climb. It mounts higher and higher until the arm he’s using to brace himself while looking at the device buckles and he collapses sideways.

The fall to the uneven, rubble-covered ground jars Mac’s injuries even further and he’s unable to stifle the cry that results, choked and cut off though it is. Spike is talking to him again, and Mac tries to focus on his voice. He locks onto that one piece of input and does his best to shut out everything else, including the agony that’s seized his entire body, concentrated over his side and shoulder. When it finally subsides enough that he can breathe, Mac opens his eyes and is surprised to make eye contact with someone. 

“Hey, there you go,” Spike says. It appears that he’s laid on the ground outside of Mac’s explosion-created prison, able then to look through the space cleared around the bomb and get a look at Mac. “Seems like you got kinda banged up there, Mac, can you tell me what hurts?”

Mac is no stranger to that tone of voice, friendly and conversational, kept deliberately light and kind. He’s used it before himself. It’s how you talk to seriously wounded teammates in the field or terrified children or random people caught up in a nightmare on the worst day of their lives. Having it turned on him must mean that, for whatever part of him Spike can see, he looks really bad. 

Bringing one still unsteady hand up to his face, Mac tries to wipe as much of the blood still trickling down his forehead as possible. It wets his wrist, soaking into his sleeve and leaving him pretty sure he looks like an extra out of a slasher flick, but the action helps ground him, at least enough to speak.

“Just about everything,” he manages in answer to Spike’s question. “But ‘m okay. I can do this. Just give me a sec, I can do this.”

“Are you…” There’s a hesitation before he finishes asking, like he’s afraid of what the answer will be. “Are you sure?”

“We really don’t have a choice.” They’re both thinking it, Mac is just the one to put it to words. “There’s no defusing this thing without accessing this side, and I'm the only one in here. Lucky for both of us, I used to do this every day overseas, and I've seen this guy’s work before. I’ll be okay.”

“Alright then. If you’re sure.” Spike gets quieter, muffled like he’s turned away from the opening to where Mac is trapped, though it’s still audible. “Yeah. Seems like he’s in pretty bad shape, but he’s good to keep going. No, I’ve got no idea who this guy is, but he’s my only option and you didn’t see him with the second device. He knows what he’s doing.” A pause. “I will.” His voice goes into a different tone now, a little exasperated but mostly fond as he says,  _ “Yeah, _ I know. I will.”

Mac wonders what’s being said on the other end of that communication link. Wonders if it’s anything like what he’s hearing when he sounds like that, a hundred different ‘be careful’s, ‘don’t do anything stupid’s, ‘we need you back in one piece’s running through his mind. 

By the time Spike returns and crouches down on the other side of the bomb, gloved hands coming back into view, Mac is sitting up on his knees, ready to get started. The pain has died down as much as it’s going to, and while the cut on his face is still bleeding, it’s manageable. It’s going to have to be. 

They start taking apart their respective sides and the quiet starts getting to mac. After taking his fifth pause to swipe his forearm across his face, sleeve becoming saturated as it sops up the blood, he shifts on the ground trying to find any moderately comfortable position, which turns out to be a mistake. As a tide returns to the shore, the pain picks up again, starting slow and coming faster as it builds. The flashlight Spike passed in to him slips from suddenly shaking fingers already slick with blood, clattering to the ground. 

It takes about as long to pass the second time as it had the first. When the surge ebbs enough to think straight, it’s the same sound that brings him out of it. Hands stilled where Mac can see them on the far end of the bomb’s casing, Spike is talking to him again. He seems to notice when Mac begins to move of his own accord, rather than whatever twitching spasms had accompanied the agonizing wave, voice slowing to a stop.

There are a few moments of quiet, then, “With me again, Mac?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Mac is not proud of the way his voice comes out, hoarse and shaky, but there’s not much else for it. 

Thankfully, as Mac locates his flashlight and gets ready to resume the slow and delicate process, Spike doesn’t ask if he’s okay. It would be a moot question. They both know he isn’t, and is becoming progressively less so as his battered body is forced into awkward, stiff positions by the confines of where he’s trapped and the arduous task at hand. To ask him if he’s alright at this point would merely rub salt in the situation, with no recourse at hand to make anything better. 

The silence of before doesn’t return this time, though. As soon as Mac starts sifting through wires, moving excruciatingly slowly thanks to the tremors that periodically assault his hands, Spike starts talking. 

“Said you knew this guy’s work,” he says, tone curious rather than interrogatory. “Anybody I would know?”

Practically speaking, there’s not a lot of a point to the question. Mac is sure that, back beyond the perimeter where they’ve somehow managed to keep Jack from bolting all the way down here yet, Spike’s team is getting answers from his. Jack and Riley know as much about the investigative side of this as he does, by this point, and he’s far from the optimal person to be interviewing. He doesn’t get the feeling, however, that Spike is asking because he’s trying to conduct an interview. He’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, and perhaps because he’s noticed, somehow picked up on the fact that the quiet is getting to Mac more than he’d like to admit. 

“Maybe? He’s never operated in Canada before.” Mac wipes his forehead again, this time with his left sleeve rather than his right. The right is becoming useless, so completely soaked through with blood that it hardly removes any of the fresh stuff, sending trickles of it down the side of Mac’s jaw. “He’s only been in the United States twice, too. Mainly overseas stuff.”

“Try me,” Spike challenges. Mac can see his hands and blue-grey jacketed forearms through the gap, deft and practiced as he separates components, exposing the left hemisphere of the bomb’s brain. “If it’s explosive or electronic, odds are I’ve heard of it. I like to keep up with what’s going on, y’know. Stay informed.”

“Alright.” Maybe it’s their circumstances - trauma bonding is a powerful force - or maybe it’s something about the man himself, but Mac is becoming more and more fond of Spike the longer they spend out here, bent over this mess of chemicals and circuitry together. “Serial bomber called the Ghost. Takes contracts to take out targets, always uses two devices. That’s how I knew there was a second one.”

Spike’s hands have gone completely still and for a moment, there’s silence. Then, as he picks up a small pair of needle nose pliers, he asks, voice gone flatly awe-struck, “The Ghost? You’re  _ kidding _ me, you’ve seen a Ghost bomb?” A beat as the information sets in, hands frozen once more. “Wait. This? This that we’re working on right now,  _ this  _ is a Ghost bomb?”

“Hey,” Mac says quickly. It’s his turn, he figures, to be the grounding presence to keep his temporary coworker calm and engaged. “The last one was in my house. This is nothing.”

“Dude.” It’s a shocked, impressed hush of a word. “You and me, we have  _ got _ to get a beer when this is over.”

Despite himself and despite the situation, Mac has to laugh. “Yeah, sure. You’re on.”

If it weren’t for knowing that Riley is there watching him, Jack would be having a much harder time keeping his cool about all of this. It’s a near thing when the guy in charge of the SRU team, an intense and unflappable man who’d introduced himself as Sergeant Greg Parker, relays what he’s hearing from his tech, Spike, down by the blast site, where there’s evidently still another, undetonated bomb.

“Now I’m only telling you this,” he says, eyes fixed intently on Jack and voice hard but not unkind, “because I trust you’re not going to go tearing off down there the instant you hear it. If you do, we’re going to have to move you back behind the civilian perimeter with a babysitter to make sure you stay put, American federal agent or no. I know you don’t want that, and I don’t want to waste the manpower, okay?”

Jack feels Riley’s hand when it takes ahold of his sleeve, and he tenses his jaw against the rush of fear that disclaimer sends through him. He grinds out, “Get to the point, Parker.” Parker, to his credit, does. 

Still in that compassionate but direct tone, the kind Jack is used to hearing from the doctors who meet him in the waiting room after Mac’s latest mishap with gravity, or oxygen deprivation, or sharp bladed things that relieve a person of their blood, Parker tells him, “Mac was hurt. In the blast.”

Jack’s teeth grit at the same time that Riley’s grip tightens, fingers digging hard into his arm just above his elbow. “How bad?” He’s not looking at Parker anymore, searching the scene beyond their enforced minimum safe distance for any sign of Mac. There’s none to be found, no glimpse of blond hair or the green henley he’d been wearing that day. The only person Jack can see is Spike, a figure in SRU gear, crouched next to the pile of rubble left behind by the explosion.

“I won’t lie to you, Spike says he’s pretty banged up. But he’s conscious, coherent, and able to assist with defusing the remaining device.” It’s not a reassuring thing to hear, but at least it’s honest. Parker isn’t done though, continuing with the second blow of bad news. “And he’ll need to, because he’s trapped down there, and he’s the only one who can reach half of that bomb.”

“Trapped?” Riley is the one who asks it, voice hollow and horrified. Jack doesn’t speak at all. He can’t, lungs suddenly seized in a vice grip. He almost gets as far as starting to walk, taking off towards where Mac is apparently hidden under that haphazard pile of debris from the construction materials. Almost. 

Parker stops him, stepping sideways until he’s standing directly in front of them both. “We talked about this, we all just gotta stay put here and let them do their job. I get it, I do, I got one of my guys down there too, remember? So I know. I know you feel like the world’s turned upside down with how wrong it is to be stuck back here while he’s in trouble, but you know what else I know? That the officer I have down there is the best we’ve got at what he does. And I'm willing to bet yours is too, isn’t he?”

“The best. No question.” There’s almost a defensive edge to what Riley says, even as, for the second time, Jack can’t get his vocal cords to cooperate in time to respond.

“Then we’ve just got to sit back and trust that they have this, okay? We’ll have paramedics on standby the moment it’s safe to get him out of there, and you have my guarantee on behalf of the very grateful people of this city that he’ll get the best medical care Toronto can give him. Alright?”

Jack doesn’t necessarily agree, it would feel too much like some kind of blasphemy to say anything about this was  _ okay _ or  _ alright, _ but he does back down. He shifts, turning away from Parker, and Riley moves with him to tuck against his side. They lean on each other for a while, watching in tense silence while the SRU team moves around them, unable to see Mac but knowing he’s there, hurt and trapped and alone.

Or, well. Not entirely alone. Jack hears the voice of the SRU officer, a quiet man he’d guess was a little older than Mac and Riley, maybe ten feet to his right asking a question. None of his teammates are standing near him at the time, which must mean he’s speaking into his headset. When Jack looks over at him, he looks back, revealing stitching on his lapel reading  _ YOUNG. _

“Hey, Spike,” he says into the headset, still looking at Jack, “how’s he doing? Condition holding steady? It is? Thanks.” With a touch of a button, he mutes his end and walks a few steps closer, holding out a hand for Jack to shake. “Lewis Young. Lou. Spike says he’s not getting any worse, but he’s gonna keep an eye on things. If Mac deteriorates, we’ll figure something out, but for now, he seems like he’s hanging in there.”

Grateful for the effort, the unnecessary extra time put into easing a stranger’s frightened nerves, Jack manages a faint smile and a thank you. Lou smiles and nods back at him, then turns away, jogging to catch up with a woman with dark brown hair tucked up into a hat. 

It doesn’t take long before Riley has the idea, nudging Jack with her elbow and saying, “The Ghost. They probably don’t know even a fraction of what we do about him, maybe we should-”

“Good idea,” Jack agrees immediately. How much of it is because this team’s investigation could use the intel and how much is out of a desire for something,  _ anything _ he can do to help, Jack doesn’t know or care to ruminate on. Instead he calls out, “Hey, Parker!”

It’s almost uncanny, the way he seems to practically materialize on Riley’s other side. He seems extremely interested in what they have to say about the Ghost, the man they’re almost positive is behind this bombing, and directs them to follow him towards the tactical van. Instructing them to wait there for someone to come over and take a few statements about the Ghost, Parker stops just as he’s about to go, looking back.

“It’s Greg,” he adds. “People whose teammates are stuck defusing a bomb with mine get to call me Greg.”

“Jack. And Riley. We’re Jack and Riley,” Jack responds unnecessarily. He’s definitely already introduced himself, possibly multiple times, not that he’s expending brain power on keeping track. Despite the frazzled repetition, Greg smiles at them both and nods, then leaves them in the hands of the woman from earlier, Jules Callaghan. 

Time distorts itself around Jack and Riley’s conversation with Jules about the Ghost and their previous encounters with him. Jack lets Riley do most of the talking, jumping in when he needs to. He himself spends the majority of the time they spend bringing Jules up to speed with what they know trying not to vibrate right out of his skin with displaced nerves. There’s nothing here for him to do, and it’s torturous to sit through.

Riley seems to be having much the same problem, once their interview is wrapped up. Her eyes dart quickly around the van, taking in everything it’s outfitted with, eventually lighting on a bank of computer monitors. It seems like the team is looking through surveillance footage but the man paging through it, Wordsworthy, Wordy Jack’s heard them call him, looks like he’s having some trouble with accessing some of the feeds. 

Having also noticed this, Riley is quick to offer her help, explaining her role with her own team in as vague but official sounding terms as possible. She’s given the all clear, likely something to do with a phone call Jack would hazard Matty has probably made by now, the kind that tends to get them into places they shouldn’t. Once she’s in the seat next to Wordy’s, fingers flying over a borrowed keyboard, Riley seems to settle. Jack only wishes he had a skill that was transferable right now.

After a few minutes of watching her do this, Jack leaves the van while she works to stand outside and watch, even though he still can’t see anything except for Spike in the distance. This is all just so completely  _ wrong. _

He’s supposed to be there. Jack is always supposed to be there. It’s the one thing he can do even when the situation is completely out of his control and the only thing they can count on to prevent some kind of tragedy is the sharpness of Mac’s mind and the skill of his hands. Jack has ended up in so many situations he couldn’t fix, things he couldn’t make right or even better, but he’d at least been able to stay. Not even being able to do that much is excruciating. 

Looking around in another aimless sweep of his surroundings, he spots Greg. Approaching him, Jack is about to ask for an update when he sees the look on Greg’s face change. It isn’t a dramatic difference, just a thinning of the pursed line of his mouth, a furrow in his brow, his hand coming up to briefly grasp at the back of his own neck, then falling back to his side. Jack’s heart rate quickens and so do his steps, until he’s stopped right next to the Sergeant.

“Alright, Spike, copy,” Greg is saying, eyes fixed downrange. “Be careful.” Beyond him, the rest of the visible members of the team seem to have gone still as well, all of them looking in that same direction.

“What?” Jack asks, unable to contain himself any longer. “What’s happening?”

“They’re about to cut the last wires.” It’s Lou who explains, face and voice calm. His arms, folded tightly over the bulk of his vest, visible fingers tapping lightly over his ribs, are the only thing that betray his nerves. “It’s almost over.”

Somehow, that’s the bit that does it. Before he’s hardly realized what he’s doing, Jack is moving, starting off past the perimeter and towards his partner. Quicker than he’d have predicted a stocky, sturdily built man like Greg could move, there are hands on him, grabbing him by the arm and planting a palm firmly in the center of his chest. He’s swept immediately back and away though he puts up at least the imitation of a fight, not wanting to go. 

“I have to get down there,” he says. Static buzzes in Jack’s ears and in his fingertips and he can feel his heart thudding in his throat. “I have to be there, he’s not supposed to be- I’m not supposed to leave him. I  _ have _ to be there.”

“You can’t,” Greg tells him, ushering him away from the others, to the opposite side of the tac van. “I’m sorry but you have to stay here. He’s going to be okay, he and Spike have this. I get why you’re feeling this way, trust me I do, my teammate is down there with him, but they’re going to be done in just a moment.”

Jack is already shaking his head, dizzy with the movement. His hand goes out, grasping at the front of Greg’s vest but not either pushing him away or pulling him to the side. Just gripping, fingers tangled in the coarse black material. He must be drowning. This is what drowning feels like, Jack knows. He’s either drowning or having a panic attack, and can’t quite figure out which, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he needs to make Greg understand why he has to be down there, has to get to Mac.

“That’s not just my…” Drawing in a deep, shaking breath, Jack looks at him, grip going minutely tighter. “This isn’t just my  _ team, _ do you hear me? Down there, that’s not- that’s not just my teammate, that’s my kid. That’s my  _ kid _ and he’s-”

“I know.” Greg’s voice is gentle and patient and he’s holding onto Jack’s wrist now, the wrist of the hand that’s grabbed onto him. “But I need you to take a deep breath for me.”

“You don’t  _ know,” _ Jack can’t refrain from snapping. This guy just isn’t  _ listening. _ “You don’t, I’m telling you, that’s-”

“That’s your boy, I know.  _ Trust me, _ I  _ know.” _ It’s a snap in return that time, the first instance of Greg raising his voice that Jack has experienced throughout this whole awful afternoon of knowing him, and for reasons he can’t identify, this is what brings him to a stop. 

The look on Greg’s face is… different. He’s dropped the calm of a leader, of the man in charge, and just for right now, Jack sees it. The things battering inside his own chest, making him feel like he’s suffocating and his ribcage is collapsing in on itself, he sees them all reflected back. And it takes all the air out of him in one go. Were it not for Greg, guiding him to lean back against the van, Jack may have gone directly to the sidewalk the moment his knees gave out. 

When Lou’s head pokes around the corner of the van, he’s smiling.

“They got it. They’re done.”

As soon as the final wire is clipped through, Mac collapses completely onto the ground. He’d given up by that point pretending he wasn’t in complete agony, forcing his body to fold over that bomb as he makes choices and severs connections in the same pattern Spike does on the other end. Either that or he’s simply out of the energy to, unable to keep up the act even if he’d tried. It’s all Mac has left in him to force himself to count out loud along with Spike, their voices blending together and twin metallic  _ snips _ sounding on ‘three.’ 

It’s over. The bomb is defused and it’s over, and Mac doesn’t have to fight any more. So he lets himself fall, not even caring when his head thunks into the rough edge of a chunk of concrete. His Swiss Army Knife drops from blood-slick fingers and he coughs against the pain seizing his chest in a vice-grip, then coughs again, and again in an attack triggered by spasming muscles in his torso. Spike is calling his name, Mac can hear it, but he can’t answer. All he can do is breathe in little whooping gasps around the coughs, and try not to black out completely. 

“Just hang on, Mac, they’re coming. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang on, and you’re going to be okay.”

Time slips and flutters. Mac can hear Spike’s voice, and soon it’s joined by others, and by the sound of equipment and shifting debris. His eyes close and open and he tracks the light as it shifts, swaying and ballooning over him when someone shifts a piece that had been blocking his view of the sun. Squinting against the sudden brightness, Mac feels himself being pulled and then lifted, leaving the ground behind and being set on what he assumes, in the faint part of his brain still processing things like assumptions, is a stretcher.

Something’s still missing. Mac’s hand flops around, falling from the gurney as it wheels over the bumpy remnants of the smaller pieces of shrapnel from the original explosion, littered across the ground. Someone catches it, lifting it in their own grip, the touch calloused and rough but tender in the way it handles him, a thumb brushing over the back of his knuckles as it sets his hand back over his own chest. 

The touch has no sooner left his hand than it lands on his head, gingerly avoiding what Mac assumes is a pretty nasty looking laceration to stroke that same thumb over his temple. He hears voices in the distance, too far away for him to make out what they’re saying, but they seem familiar. There’s another hand on him then, smaller and softer, accompanied by the faint smell of lilacs, and he knows the truth now. Spike had been right, when he’d said Mac was going to be okay. How could he not be, now that they’re here?

The last thought Mac has before he blacks out completely is that Spike definitely, a hundred percent, without a doubt owes him that beer.


End file.
